


Run boy run

by Canadian_girl2000



Series: Whumptober 2020 [7]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27019414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canadian_girl2000/pseuds/Canadian_girl2000
Summary: Dick gets kidnapped and injected with a drug that will kill him if he stops moving.Whumptober day 7: KidnappedWhumptober day 17: Drugged
Relationships: Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne
Series: Whumptober 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946773
Comments: 2
Kudos: 102





	Run boy run

**Author's Note:**

> The kidnapped bit doesn't really last long, but close enough I guess.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> Edit: I combined two prompts for the fic since I'm slow at writing.

Criminals that were competent were the worst.

That was the conclusion that Dick came to from his chained up position. At least when criminals were incompetent, it was easy to rile them up or to simply escape the bindings and deal with the situation. Competent criminals, however, knew what they were doing. They knew not to listen to anything Nightwing said. They knew how to restrain him in such a way that he couldn’t escape or click his emergency beacon. Those guys were the worst.

He didn’t even know how they grabbed him. One second he was fighting, the next he was waking up chained to a wall. In the two minutes he’d been awake, he’d drawn that conclusion. The next thing he needed to figure out was how the hell to escape.

He was about… 75% sure he wasn’t injured. He didn’t think he’d been hit over the head, so that meant no concussion. That, however, meant he’d probably been drugged and that was probably the worst of the two. He didn’t feel woozy or anything, so it was probably just knockout or something. He hoped.

The room he was in was small with no windows and no cameras he could see. From the smell that lingered in the air, he could deduce that he was near water, so either the bay or the docks. Not very helpful information, but at least he had some idea of where he was.

He had just started fiddling with the chains, trying to see if there was any way he could get loose, or get to his lock pick, when the door slammed open. Three men walked in, two with guns while the other wore a lab coat.

“Good evening Nightwing. I’m glad to see you are awake” Labcoat said, coming to stand in front of him.

“I live to please” Dick quipped sarcastically.

“Oh, you definitely will,” Labcoat said and a chill went down Dick’s spine. This didn’t appear to be a classic ‘kidnap a vigilante and beat them half to death’ situation. Those were routine enough. This was something else. He eyed the man in the lab coat cautiously, trying to find anything that would help him out of this situation.

“We were looking for a willing test subject and lucky us! You stumbled right into our hiring process and past the test!” 

A what? Dread started to pool in Dick’s stomach. This situation had gone from bad to awful. He needed to get out and fast. He renewed his struggles.

“Look at that, boys! Our test subject is so happy he’s speechless!” Labcoat exclaimed, turning to the two goons behind him, who both let out a low chuckle. He turned back to Dick and pulled a syringe out of what seemed like nowhere. “I’ve created a poison that kills its victims slowly. The good news is that as long as your heart rate doesn’t drop below a certain level, it doesn’t take effect. So as long as you keep active, you won’t die! The second it does drop, however, you die a rather… painful death.” he stopped his explanation in order to roll up one of Dick’s sleeves. 

“We know it works, so that’s not why you’re here,” he said, completing the motion. He gestured towards the goons and one of them opened the door to the room, while the other came to stand next to Dick, a key in his hand. “You see, we still haven’t found an antidote for this poison and what better way to test it than on a bat. We are using you to see how long a man can stay on the move for before he is forced to stop and we are using you to see how long it will take for you to find a cure. Don’t worry about how we will collect our information, we have our ways.” he raised the needle, gently pressing it to Dick’s arm. “Once I inject you, you will have about a minute before the poison starts to affect you, the timer will reset once you raise your heart rate.” he slowly injects the poison, ignoring all of Dick’s struggles. “I suggest you start running little birdie.”

The goon next to him unlocked his restraints and Dick fell to the floor.

“Thirty seconds left, little birdie,” Labcoat says, standing aside. Dick took one last look at them before bolting out the door. He stumbled his way out of the building and down the street, too terrified to use his grapple.

As he ran, he looked around. He had been right. He was near the docks. Not that that helped in any way. He was far from the Batcave. Too far to run the whole way. Shit. He couldn’t drive there. At least, he didn’t think he could. Shit. Who on patrol would be closest? Thinking while running at full sprint was hard. He was pretty sure Jason was the one closest to him. He slowed from his sprint but kept running. He tapped his com.

“Wing to Hood” he panted.

“What’s up?” came Jason’s reply. From the slight slur, he was probably smoking. Dick resisted the urge to tell him how bad that habit was.

“Was injected with something. Don’t know what.” he panted out in short sentences. He was glad Bruce had them work on endurance. It would probably save his life.

“Shit! Are you okay? Where are you?” a pause, “Are you running?”

“Can’t stop. Need to keep heart rate up.” He ran past a couple who gave him an odd look. God, people probably thought he was crazy.

“Shit! I’ll track you and meet you. Just, keep moving, yeah?” He could hear Jason scrambling down a fire escape.

“Yeah. Tell B.” Better to let Bruce know what was going on from someone who wasn’t panicking and running. He kept running.

A few blocks later Jason caught up to him. 

“How slow can you go before it starts to take effect?” Jason asked. That was actually a good question. He knew the poison wasn’t instant, and that if he started running again it would stop whatever effect the poison had.

“Dunno.” He slowed to a fast jog. “I think this is okay?” he said when he didn’t feel anything bad, other than a bit out of breath.

Jason matched his pace. “Anything else you can tell me?”

“There’s no antidote. We need to find one.” At their current pace, it would take about three hours to reach the Batcave. 

“Shit.” was Jason's eloquent response. “We won’t make it to the Cave. I’ll tell B to meet us at a safehouse. He’ll bring all the testing equipment he can and we’ll find the antidote, okay Big Bird?”

“‘Kay” he replied. He heard Jason relaying the information to Bruce. He just focused on not tripping up. That would be an embarrassing way to go. Tripping then dying from a painful poison. Not a fun way to go. He followed Jason as he led the way to the safe house. The Batmobile was already parked outside when they got there. When they neared it, Bruce, Tim and Damian all hoped out. Dick slowed to on the spot running. It should be good enough. He hoped.

“Report,” Bruce asked, coming to stand in front of Dick.

“Dick was injected with something and he needs to keep his heart rate up. There’s no cure.” Jason summarised, even though Bruce already knew.

“Any other side effects?” Bruce inquired, looking Dick over without touching him.

“No,” Dick said. At least, he didn’t think so. Bruce nodded. 

“Do you want to stay out here, or do you want to come inside?” Bruce asked.

“Inside.” When this was over, Dick wasn’t going to move from his bed for at least a week. He let Bruce go in first then followed behind with his brothers in an awkward shuffle jog. He didn’t want to know what would happen if he stopped.

Once inside, Bruce managed to get a blood sample. It was a weird process seeing as Dick couldn’t stop moving, but they managed. Tim and Bruce sat at the kitchen table, all the equipment spread out in front of them as they searched for an antidote. 

Jason and Damian kept him company. He just kept jogging on the spot or jogging around the room. God, he hated this. If only he hadn’t been stupid enough to get himself kidnapped. He still didn’t even know how it had happened either. 

An hour passed and he could feel his legs starting to cramp up. He was tired and his jog had slowed. Jason was doing his best to distract him, but he had tunned him out at some point to concentrate on just moving his legs. He really hoped Bruce and Tim would find a cure soon.

Thankfully, ten minutes later Tim jumped up, screaming “We got it!” He jumped over the couch, a glass in his hand. “Drink this,” he instructed, thrusting the glass into Dick’s hand. Dick complied, making a face at the horrible taste. 

“You’ll be fine now, but you need to walk it off,” Bruce said, still sitting at the table. Dick frowned. He didn’t think his legs could take any more movement at this point. Damian grabbed his hand and led him around the room.

When Bruce finally said he could stop walking, he all but collapsed, dragging Damian down with him. Bruce came over to them and picked him up. “You’ll be okay, chum.” He carried Dick over to the couch, where he set him down before sitting next to him. Damian sat on his other side, while Tim and Jason occupied the other couch. They were all still in uniform, but none of them cared.

“Thanks,” he managed to mumble. His legs were hurting and he was exhausted. He turned so that he was practically curled up into Bruce’s side.

“Get some sleep, Dick. We’ll be here when you wake up” Bruce said, bringing a hand up to his hair. He fell asleep to the sound of Bruce’s steady heartbeat.

* * *

[My Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/canadian-girl2000)

**Author's Note:**

> "I'm going to catch up on whumptober this week!" *Proceeds to not write and to play Arkham Asylum instead*
> 
> Sorry for the delay, I'll try to get another story out tomorrow.
> 
> Next time I'm going to torture another one of the Batboys cause I think I've tortured poor Dick enough for now.


End file.
